QUAIL SHOOTING 341 



In the North, the quail makes its home where some 

 buckwheat or other grain field is available for a food 

 supply. It so arranges its haunts that it has some 

 cover within easy flight, in the densest part of which 

 it seeks safety when flushed, not refusing the heavily 

 timbered swamps if too much persecuted by the shooter. 

 In such places it has an excellent chance of escape 

 from pursuit, or may foil its pursuer by simply run- 

 ning away; or, if pressed to take flight, it has many 

 chances for safety owing to the difficulty of shooting 

 accurately in the dense cover. 



New England shooting is the most difficult of all 

 quail shooting, excepting, perhaps, shooting in the 

 dense pines and cat briers of the South. Then, to 

 have any satisfactory success, the scattered birds must 

 be diligently followed and sought in the thickets, be 

 they ever so dense. In this respect it differs from 

 shooting in the sections of more abundance, where 

 such close attention to the scattered birds is unneces- 

 sary, either for sport or the interest of the bag. 



In the South, where there is an abundance of birds, 

 comparatively, the sportsman rarely tarries with a bevy 

 which gives him any special difficulty. It is much 

 easier, and more satisfactory, to go on and seek more 

 birds. For this reason, even under favorable oppor- 

 tunities, the scattered birds are never, as a rule, hunted 

 till the last one is flushed, and flushed again, when it 

 is possible, as in the North. 



In New England, buckwheat fields are the quails' 

 choicest resorts for food, and any adjacent brush, or 



